Conal Walsh Sunday May 25, 2003 The Observer
Mining group Anglo American is facing a legal action that alleges it has profited from paramilitary killings, lawlessness and corruption in Colombia.
The claim, which is to be filed in a United States court by the Colombian mineworkers' union, accuses Anglo of turning a blind eye to human rights abuses and failing to adequately compensate villagers evicted to make way for its mines. Anglo strongly denies the allegations.
The action comes at an awkward moment for the UK-listed group, which is already fighting a multi-billion-dollar lawsuit claiming that it profited from collaborating with the apartheid-era government of South Africa.
Union leader Francisco Ramírez told The Observer last week that the Colombian lawsuit will be filed under America's Alien Tort Statute, which allows victims to sue in the US for alleged human rights violations in other countries.
It will demand that Anglo take responsibility for paramilitary activities around a gold mine in the north of the war-torn Latin American state, where local people have allegedly been terrorised into leaving their land.
Yesterday, however, the company said it was not involved in the gold mine, and denied any connection to the firm that runs it.
The mineworkers' union also wants Anglo to increase compensation to farmers forcibly evicted from Tabaco, a village close to the Cerrejón coalmine, which the company part-owns.
Anglo's spokesman said that it did not operate Cerrejón at the time of the evictions, which it believes were legal. Most villagers, he added, accepted an earlier offer of compensation.